I'm looking for one or maybe two starving programmers to help with a weird
problem.
I'm a network admin who has to deal with poorly written programs from travel
reservation outfits. These guys are almost totally unresponsive to
comments, complaints or even positive feedback.
While I know enough programming to be dangerous, ie: I can write DLLs and NT
services, some of what I need to do is beyond my capability. And I need
this stuff done yesterday. :-)
If anyone is interested in what I need done, and wouldn't mind getting a few
bucks for it (I can pay C$14.00/hour - higher rates are negotiable), please
write me directly or post a followup to the group.
There are two problems I've been unable to solve so far. Here's problem
one:
I need to run an application as an NT service. The application is a print
spooler for printing paper air tickets, invoices, itineraries and so forth,
which was originally written for Windows 95. This by itself is easy - use
SRVANY - and I'm already doing this. The problem is the application is
finicky. It launches another process of its own and only closes this
process
down when it exits gracefully. Sometimes I also need to prod this thing to
reconnect to the reservation network once in a while, and I can't do that
without stopping the service, killing the child process it launched,
restarting it as an application and reconnecting it manually, then exiting
it and FINALLY restarting it as a service.
What I want done is a proper NT service (it will run on NT 4.0) that will
launch this application, send it key strokes or menu commands, and monitor
it. When I want to stop the service, I want it to send a proper File/Exit
command to it so it closes its child process gracefully. The application
already writes Event Log entries by itself, so the service that launches it
doesn't need to do so.
The challenge is how to send menu events or key strokes to the application
when its window isn't visible on the desktop, and monitoring the application
by reading its controls - it has some read-only checkboxes indicating its
connection status and such. Because of the proprietary nature of the
application in question, I can't post details publicly. I can explain more
directly if you want.
The second challenge is more for VBA developers, I think:
The same client runs an application that can copy text output from itself
and send it to another application or store area (Notepad, the clipboard, a
text file, e-mail, or a user-specified app such as Word). The catch is I
want to be able to have such output redirected to a new Word 2000 document
created from a predefined template, such as a company letterhead. Currently
they do this by targeting the clipboard and pasting into Word, but this is
error-prone.
I've tried command line parameters that cause Word to create a new document
based on a specified template, but Word proceeds to create a new doc with
the template AND open the captured text in yet another new document - using
the Normal template. No, replacing the Normal template isn't a good option.
What I want, I guess, is an "in-between" application or script that can copy
the captured text into a new Word doc created from the specified template,
bypassing the clipboard entirely and saving a bunch of user steps. Again, I
can explain more if you're interested. Perhaps this could be done in a
macro in the template or something, or with an external app or script that
launches Word with the needed template and pastes automatically.
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GOD BLESS AMER, er, THE INTERNET. <http://vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=401&page=4>
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